Speccing for utility?Follow

At Level 75, rogues get a neat new toy: Tricks of the Trade.

I remember in my days of Final Fantasy XI, it was very important to utilize your character for the benefit of the party, not necessarily for highest damage. That game was much more focused on teamwork though: you could do much more damage with great timing with skill chains and magic bursts than just going all out by yourself.

Its also true in World of Warcraft that often doing what aids the party is better than just top DPS. However, there's not as much teamwork skills. The main consideration for dps is just not pulling aggro and using party buff/enemy debuff skills.

For rogue, the only consideration used to be not to pull aggro, and on some stuff, if you need to sap. Since we have plenty of aggro dropping skills, our only real consideration when choosing spec and equipment was maximizing our DPS over the course of a fight.

We have a utility skill now however.

Now, I want to preface this with the fact that currently it seems like tanks need no extra help with threat. Current mechanics seem like it has made tanking basically EZ mode. As long as the tank is using their abilities and targeting correctly, there's not much help needed.

But, if this ends up not being quite the case, would it ever be a consideration that maybe we should spec for threat giving utility? I.e. combining max dps with good burst for tank threat?

Initial burst used to be the bane of dps existence, because it often meant dead dps, just ask a mage, but now with this tool, it might actually be a good thing.


Either way, I plan to make this a constant use skill, even no threat consideration, giving the tank +15% damage for a short time makes everyone happy.

If a tank is far enough ahead on threat you could use this on a dps character to boost their dps. For instance a hunter, who can drop all his threat every 25 seconds anyway. I know I'd be thrilled

Yes, but it's hardly like you'd actually spec for that. You basically spec for damage and drop a small number of points in utility.

Exactly what I said. You spec for what deals the most DPS and pick up the utility that houses in that tree. It's not like you throw everything overboard and base your spec entirely around Master Poisoner or Savage Combat.

I already see where this is going; you don't understand what I'd call "Speccing for utility" (even though my first post in the thread should give a pretty good impression). I'm just not going to explain EVERY little detail in ALL of my posts here to make sure you do.

Edited, Nov 22nd 2008 9:40pm by Mozared

How come the sticky mut build doesn't have turn the tables?

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0gfoexoVboIuVo0xZx

Alright. So if you spend 69 talent points into personal DPS improving talents, and 2 in utility talents, you call it "speccing for utility"? The irony of the situation is killing me; YOU fail to grasp that I'm talking about something completely different and insist on bringing your 1337 raid knowledge and standards back into the battle, yet you call me clueless. In fact, it's EXACTLY like I stated in my last post: I'm thinking out of the box, you fail to understand that and apply your basic raid rules which are already way behind me.

In case it still hasn't gotten trough yet: when I say SPECCING 100% FOR UTILITY, I'm thinking of a spec in which you sacrifice several aspects of your character (healing, tanking, burst DPS, raid DPS) to obtain PURE utility. Ofcourse a raiding DPS will spec into a raidwide buff to ensure as many raidwide buffs as possible are available, but I'm on about something completely different.

And stopping posting advice? Be glad you've at least got somebody who looks past boundaries so you can downrate him for it.

Edited, Nov 23rd 2008 4:49am by Mozared

I'm not, actually =P It's just that I'm trying to say that "speccing for utility" would be speccing into an entirely different (non-existing) tree that would make you master of utility but would take away a large chunk of your DPS.

What annoys me is that Theo's always the one to view my words as if it were a raid or something like that. And that's exactly what I was trying to say with my last post: Yes, I know you spec for raid DPS in order to have as much raid buffs as possible around. But all that's way past me; I'm thinking 'what if', and 'else what'. This is a forum, I'm here to brainstorm about new ideas. It's just that all my ideas or get thrown into raiding content, don't conform with the basic raiding rules and I end up being called an idiot for not adhering to those rules. While in fact, I already know them but am thinking past them.

Yes, I do. But like I've said before; your understanding of "speccing for utility" differs from mine. If you spec for healing, you lose DPS or tanking capabilities. If you spec for tanking, you lose DPS and/or healing capabilities. That's the way I see speccing for utility: if you spec for utility, you lose DPS capabilities. I realize that's not the way it works now. Which is exactly what I've been saying in a less defined way in my first post; read the bolded parts a little up ahead.



Exactly, which is precisely what I've stated in my first post:




Oh but I do, I just don't care about it. Which coincidentially is exactly the reason why I've given up raiding on my rogue. I hate adjusting to the stupid box. I'll happily akknowledge that you have a greater 'box-knowlegde' than me though, if that's your problem.



I will. You call it making sh*tty builds, I call it trying to be innovative.

Perhaps. There's a reason why I intend to raid as a priest, though. For the rogue class, I understand the mechanics well enough to get by and be competitive. I just don't like the way a rogue 'is supposed to' raid, which is why you'll never see me in a cookie cutter PvE build. Even if I don't succeed in coming up with some sort of uber build, I'll have pleasure in simply playing around with the talents.
Scratch that, was in a hurry when posting.

The thing is, aside from the occasional theorycrafting it's not that hard to stay on top of the mechanics anymore. Basically everything you need to know is in the sticky. I'm not trying to be innovative for the sake of serving the community with new specs, I'm trying to be innovative so I can play around with talents and see which talent has what impact where. That's exactly the reason why I intend to raid as my priest; there are no real cookie cutter healing builds since a priest can specialize himself into whatever fits your playstyle and/or needs.

I think I'm at the point where the rules don't matter that much anymore, and my best example is the mutilate build I posted into that other thread. Like I said there, it's 90% equal to an 'optimal' build; I realize some things are must-haves (dual wield spec for example), but I generally have good reasons for not picking them.

Aside from that, you do not fully need to comprehend the basic rules in order to make use of the most of them. Best example here is the 'attacking from behind' I mentioned in another thread. I got the exact effect of attacking from behind vs attacking from the front wrong, but I realize attacking from behind is more beneficial, and I'm doing it anyway.

I realize the importance of the 'rules', but I also realize the importance of looking past them. Without trying to boast, that's what gives me my use in the community; I can encourage people who care about it to do what they like and still be optimal.

Funnily enough, that's also the main reason for my karma. Like Zepoodle said entirely correct in another thread, I'm generally on about something else that what people think. It then takes me 10 posts to explain what I'm on about, and all the while I get downrated. Which is in turn the main reason why I find the karma system flawed: if 95% of the people who can rate you constantly misunderstand you, you will get rated down unjustfully. And it's not a stupid/smart conflict, it's just the simple fact that I think different than the masses.

Edited, Nov 23rd 2008 7:19pm by Mozared

Who asked you for your opinion? I think I know a great deal better what exacty I am than you.

In that case, care to give any arguments on it or should I just assume you're trolling?

I think this is the third in which I've actually mentioned it. It's not my fault I like to think about stuff.

Alright, lets pick another example then.


http://wow.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=21;mid=122604180166982241;num=52;page=1

That post was rated up to excellent. Now you tell me; was it such an EXCELLENT post, am I being sucky at communicating, or do we simply have a post with a rating which it isn't worth it?

Now, this might be shocking for y'all, but if it can happen there, it might just be possible for downrates as well, right? No, karma isn't all messed up, but to say it's always completely fair?

I also feel the need to point out that it's always others who feel the need to attack me for something. Rather than trolling or trying to punch me, you might want to look at my ideas in a more objective manner, and at least consider the possibility that you are misinterpretting me or that something else is in play. You can say what you want about me, but ask yourself; if I'm really just an idiot with no knowledge (of the game) at all, how in god's name would I be able to stand up to multiple opponents in a discussion? I'm not sure about you, but I can't say I've ever met a sucky player before that was actually able to defend his decisions.

Be nice to me, and I'll be nice to you. The answer to pretty much all problems in the world, including this one. It's not even that hard.